New Jersey business groups on Monday sued Trenton, New Jersey, to halt the implementation of a voter-approved law that requires city employers to provide workers with paid sick leave and contended that the court should invalidate the measure because it's preempted by state statutes and unconstitutional.

Plano, Texas-based eDekka LLC launched more than 100 patent suits against retailers last year, making it the most active plaintiff in patent infringement litigation in 2014 and a standout among the special breed of aggressive litigants that some attorneys say are wreaking havoc on the patent system today.

U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh on Monday signaled she would preliminarily approve a $415 million settlement to end the high-profile antitrust class action accusing Apple Inc., Google Inc. and others of illegally agreeing not to poach each other’s software engineers, months after rejecting a $325 million deal as too small.

General Electric Co., Bank of America Corp. and 30 other companies from a range of sectors, including banking, technology and insurance, pushed Congress on Monday for stronger cybersecurity laws, saying that frequent and sophisticated cyberattacks threaten national and economic security.

The federal government's recent call for comments on the Affordable Care Act's so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost insurance plans signals the start of what attorneys say will be a long and complex regulatory process likely dominated by concerns that the scheme's cost-of-living adjustment could subject less expensive plans to the tax.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told a South Carolina federal court Friday that BMW Manufacturing Co. LLC has offered no valid reason for why the agency should hand over its “privileged” pre-litigation analysis of the luxury automaker’s background check policy in a race bias suit.

Uber Technologies Inc. revealed on Friday that it discovered a data breach last September in which an unauthorized third party accessed a database containing names and driver’s license numbers for 50,000 current and former drivers for the ride-hailing company.

In a bid to strengthen human trafficking protections, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill Friday that would nail down the definition of prohibited recruitment fees sometimes charged to foreign workers on government contracts, while also passing legislation regarding North Korean sanctions.

Several Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee on Friday reintroduced two immigration bills focusing on issues related to deporting unauthorized minors, a bill requiring all employers to use E-Verify, and a bill applying criminal penalties to illegal immigration that now also blocks funding for the president’s executive actions.

Momentum in Washington is growing behind the idea of a 2015 tax reform package, but lawmakers won't be able to realize that possibility on such a tight deadline without a phalanx of power players to push the effort along. Below, experts share their thoughts on 11 individuals who hold tax reform power in their hands.

The Ninth Circuit refused on Friday to revive antitrust multidistrict litigation from Netflix Inc. subscribers claiming the company plotted with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to corner the online DVD sales and rental markets but upheld a $27 million settlement Wal-Mart reached with the plaintiffs in the case.

Commissioner Joshua D. Wright on Thursday called for a Federal Trade Commission vote on his newly proposed limiting guidelines for the agency’s “ambiguous” authority to police unfair competition, saying that the agency has to act to retain its power under Section 5 of the FTC Act.

Attorneys from Crowell & Moring LLP and Jones Day told House lawmakers Thursday that President Barack Obama's “blacklisting” executive order requiring government contractors to disclose labor law violations and forgo mandatory Title VII arbitration to win contracts was unnecessary and would “create chaos.”

Democratic lawmakers on Thursday came forward with a bill that would give a five-year extension and funding boost to the suite of Trade Adjustment Assistance programs aimed at providing relief for workers and firms that are displaced by international trade.

IGate Technologies Inc. asked a California federal court on Wednesday to toss sexual assault and battery claims from an in-house attorney’s suit accusing the company’s general counsel of denying her a promotion because she refused to have sex with him, saying her suit was filed four days too late.

Merger reviews at the Federal Trade Commission could expand to include privacy issues as consumer protections become another way for companies to compete with one another, the head of the watchdog's antitrust unit said Thursday.

A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Thursday grilled patent law experts and representatives of the business community on the best ways to tackle deceptive demand letters sent by so-called patent trolls, picking up a hot discussion that froze in Congress last year.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Thursday unveiled plans for legislation to create a program to reward and protect whistleblowers who report information about financial frauds to the state’s top cop.

The U.S. Supreme Court grappled Wednesday with the arguments in a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit over Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc.'s refusal to hire a woman who wore a headscarf but didn't mention her Muslim faith, but the justices seemed to be leaning toward siding with the EEOC.

Expert Analysis

Affirmation of the Specialty Healthcare “overwhelming-community-of-interest” test by the Fourth Circuit in Nestle Dreyer’s Ice Cream Co. v. National Labor Relations Board will almost certainly lead to a proliferation of small bargaining units across all industries, but will likely have its greatest impact on manufacturing, public utilities and retail, says Kenneth Dolin of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s heightened interest in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, an increase in investigations from the U.S. Department of Labor and the dangerous ERISA fiduciary exception to attorney-client privilege are just some of the reasons why companies should have ERISA litigators on speed dial, say Nancy Ross and Brian Netter of Mayer Brown LLP.

The worst way to respond to overcriminalization is for courts artificially to narrow criminal statutes through results-oriented decisions that ignore the plain language of the law and ultimately lead to irrational results. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court did last week in Yates v. United States, says Randall Eliason, a law professor and former federal prosecutor.

As predicted, Congress managed to avoid a Department of Homeland Security shutdown, but the continuing resolution was shorter than expected. Both chambers will need to spend time this week trying to resolve the funding issue. Meanwhile, other issues remain up in the air as attention turns to Iranian nuclear development, with the Israeli prime minister scheduled to address Congress on Tuesday, say members of Covington & Burling LLP.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc. is expected to focus on what level of knowledge an employer must have that an employee or job applicant’s religious practice may conflict with a job requirement — and from what source — before it has a duty to consider accommodation, say Dawn Solowey and Ariel Cudkowicz of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

While it is premature to draw conclusions from oral argument in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc. and Xuedan Wang v. Hearst Corp., the Second Circuit hinted that the U.S. Department of Labor's six-factor test for internship status is overly rigid and focused on the utility of an alternate test to determine whether an internship primarily benefits the intern or the employer, say Robert Whitman and Adam Smiley of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

At a certain point in Wednesday's oral arguments, the courtroom’s mood changed. Abercrombie had been schooled. And the unusually young and diverse audience — law students, mostly, it seemed — knew it. After arguments closed, a wave of spectators spilled onto the Supreme Court’s cold plaza, where Samantha Elauf emerged to face cameras and questions, beaming. “That was so cool,” many spectators said as they left. —R. Scott Oswald of ... (continued)

It does not appear that the Second Circuit’s decision in Roach v. T.L. Cannon Corp. will usher in a new era of class action certifications. Rather, it seems the court is reading the majority opinion in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend like the dissent — that the majority opinion did not significantly alter the Rule 23 landscape, says David Yeagley of Ulmer & Berne LLP.

Companies today operate under intense cost and competitive pressures. That reality is driving many legal departments to not only defend cases, but to also get involved in recovering money owed to the company through legal action. And as they do so, they are likely to keep casting a wider net, say Daniel Sasse and Deborah Arbabi of Crowell & Moring LLP.

Recently, a potential new legal trend has emerged in which plaintiffs are filing product liability and securities class actions against companies by invoking claims related to environmental, social and governance or sustainability statements. This development demonstrates the risks associated with issuing ESG statements as some consumers and investors will not hesitate to litigate their accuracy or materiality, say Sara Orr and Bar... (continued)